BOUCHARD’S FIGHT FOR QUEBEC — AND HIS LIFE
Dramatic tale of BQ leader’s battle with flesh-eating disease detailed in The Night Canada Stood Still.
A year before the 1995 Quebec referendum, separatist leader Lucien Bouchard had his leg and much of his hip amputated at Saint-Luc Hospital in Montreal. His doctor announced his leg had become infected with necrotizing fasciitis-myositis (“flesh-eating disease”) and there was no guarantee surgery stopped the spread of infection.
The news was shocking. Bloc Québécois leader Bouchard — the first separatist in history to head Ottawa’s Official Opposition — entered hospital after a Montreal meeting of the Bloc’s general council. It had been agreed at that meeting that, with premier Jacques Parizeau leading the Yes side, Bouchard and his Bloc MPs would hammer prime minister Jean Chrétien and the No forces from the House of Commons. Now his very survival, let alone his ability to inspire the Yes troops, was in doubt.
In The Night Canada Stood Still, historian Robert Wright delivers all the ghastly drama of Bouchard’s fight for his life. Good wishes flowed from across the country. At noon, on Saturday Dec. 3, 1994, Bouchard’s medical team announced he was off the critical list. The reaction was electric when cardiologist Pierre Ghosn read a scribbled note from Bouchard in French: “Let us carry on — thank you.”
Wright describes the players on both sides of the vote, including Chrétien and Parizeau and their top advisers. With the exception of Bouchard, the No forces are examined more extensively.
Rightly, Bouchard is this book’s central character. No scriptwriter could dream up a better protagonist than a man who energized the Yes campaign when he returned in February 1995.
The book draws extensively from Quebec journalists in describing the affection for Bouchard in the hearts of Quebecers.
On Oct. 30, 1995, Quebecers came within a razor’s edge of voting to become a sovereign country. The question wasn’t clear, asking as it did if Quebec should become sovereign after having made “a formal offer to Canada for an economic and political partnership.”
It was the soft landing approach that arguably steadied nerves on the Yes side and boosted the vote against Canada. It was 50.56 per cent No and 49.44 per cent Yes. The difference was 54,288 votes.
Though the book doesn’t capture the nail-biting excitement of the sliver-close vote, Wright explains his dilemma in the prologue. The challenge wasn’t “the dearth of sources but rather the extraordinary abundance.”
When an author is so frank, it would be unfair for a reviewer to complain that there’s a lack of original findings.
Wright presents a well-researched and well-written account in English. There is more passion about Bouchard’s illness than about father torn from son and brother from brother over the vote, or the fate of Quebecers disowned for taking up the federalist cause. It’s a chilly piece of writing when Wright gets down to describing the night of the referendum.
While many countries followed every nuance of Canada’s gripping referendum story, the rest of this country remained, with notable exceptions, aloof during, and after, the campaign.
The other unfortunate aspect was the depth of mendacity and ill will. After results were announced, Parizeau told Yes supporters at the Palais des congrès: “It’s true we were beaten, but beaten by what? By money and ethnic votes.”
Wright chose as his subtitle: “How the 1995 Referendum almost cost us our country.” But did it? Perhaps herein lies the reason for Wright’s matter-of-fact approach. Chrétien and others have since revealed his government had no intention of honouring a Yes vote — on the basis that the question wasn’t clear.
In April 2014, Quebecers voted out the PQ government of Pauline Marois, instead voting for Phillippe Couillard and his Liberal majority.
Separatism appears out of fashion. Perhaps it’s an idea that’s gone for good — but that would be too risky a bet to make.
Wright quotes a bold Parizeau prophesy from 2010: “Quebec will make a third bid for independence. The strategy and tactics remain to be defined.”